I recently ran across a question on Reddit r/selfhelp about how to pick yourself up when emotions are weighing you down. This past year has taken a toll on our mental health. If you’ve found yourself feeling sluggish, heavy, lethargic, or flat-out depressed, you’re most certainly not alone. Here are a couple things that work for me (I am not a doctor, so don’t take this as medical advice).
Read MoreAs I have mentioned before, I am not convinced of the efficiency of carryover in meditation. Most books on meditation discuss practicing it one time during the day, and letting carryover continue - your individual practice carries over to regular life.
I believe that training as close to “war time” conditions as possible is the best training you can get. A continual habit, like posture, is something that bridges the gap. And in my research, I’ve found Buddhist literature talking about it in this way - you first get into a state, THEN you focus on maintaining it.
Posture exercises may well work eventually, but it seems as though posture is something you have to continually practice throughout the day to get to your goal - being someone who has good posture. Similarly, there is a huge leap between someone who practices equanimity training for an hour a day and someone who is an unshakably equanimous individual.
I’m still researching and asking people for advice on how to best do this. After all, there are other continual habits I’ll want to induct in my regiment later on. I’ve had limited success with one - noting every time I feel negative emotions (they tend to fall into common groupings) and using mental gymnastics that work to get beyond them.
This worked very well for a short amount of time, but the number of variables got to be too much for me to continue. And things slipped through. I could feel happy, I could bust pass pessimistic emotions, yet fear would fall through - I would continue to procrastinate like I always do. So:
1. The willpower required to do them all was too much because I was also doing fixed meditation as well. Fixed meditation is well on its way to habit formation, so I should try it again now.
2. The willpower required to counter all negative emotions is too much, so I need to focus on one at a time. Preferably a lynch pin, like tension/relaxation. Can you be angry or depressed if you are truly relaxed? Can you even be fearful?
3. I should use a timer approach and use spot checks throughout the day. 5 times a day, I do a spot check and relieve my symptoms and move on, increasing until it becomes second nature.
4. Another method is going from the gross to the subtle. Record, do all of the me negative emotion meditation throughout the day and later, once the method is established as a habit, push it for things that have slipped. After all, habits do not equal mastery. At some point you have to push past plateaus in a learning curve.
I’m guessing that for all of this, the SRHI has to be modified, omitting frequency questions. Presumably the further along the habit goes, the LESS you’ll have to do it.